Marilynne Robinson

“But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more…

— Marilynne Robinson

For our purposes as human beings, the mind is the center of everything.

— Marilynne Robinson

“I think sometimes there might be an advantage in making people aware how worn and stale these old transgressions are. It might…

— Marilynne Robinson

There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel…

— Marilynne Robinson

My Calvinism persuades me that we are open to God, in the sense that we are not delimited, not organisms with fixed…

— Marilynne Robinson

“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father,…

— Marilynne Robinson

I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.

— Marilynne Robinson

“Every writer I know, when asked how to become a writer, responds with one word:Read.”

— Marilynne Robinson

“Faith for her was habit and family loyalty, a reverence for the Bible which was also literary, admiration for her mother and…

— Marilynne Robinson

“Prayer is a discipline in truthfulness, in honesty.”

— Marilynne Robinson

“The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’ There are pleasures to be found…

— Marilynne Robinson

I sometimes am discouraged by what seems to be a sort of conventional disparagement of humankind. I think often people feel that…

— Marilynne Robinson

Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am…

— Marilynne Robinson

“My grandfather once told her if you couldn't read with cold feet, there wouldn't be a literate soul in the state of…

— Marilynne Robinson

“Cranky old Leviticus gave us—gave Christ—not only “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” but also the rather forgotten “Thou shalt love…

— Marilynne Robinson

“I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time…

— Marilynne Robinson

I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does…

— Marilynne Robinson

There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.

— Marilynne Robinson

“They say an infant can't see when it is as young as your sister was, but she opened her eyes, and she…

— Marilynne Robinson

“These little towns were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter just such peace.”

— Marilynne Robinson

Every spirit passing through the world fingers the tangible and mars the mutable, and finally has come to look and not to…

— Marilynne Robinson

Salvation was universally considered to be much more becoming in women than in men.

— Marilynne Robinson

God does not need our worship. We worship to enlarge our sense of holy, so that we can feel and know the…

— Marilynne Robinson

“I have spent years of my life lovingly absorbed in the thoughts and perceptions of . . . people who do not exist.”

— Marilynne Robinson

“At a certain level housekeeping is a regime of small kindnesses, which, taken together, make the world salubrious, savory, and warm.”

— Marilynne Robinson